Research Laboratories

Photonics Research Laboratory

The Photonics Research Lab, led by Thomas E. Murphy at the University of Maryland, conducts research related to integrated optics, nanophotonic devices, nonlinear dynamics, terahertz photonics, nonlinear optics, ultrafast optics, microwave photonics, and optical communication systems. Our central goal is to explore new devices and techniques that improve the speed, sensitivity, resolution, and efficiency of optical communication and sensor systems.

The research in PEHREL is mainly focused on harvesting energy from environmentally friendly sources such as wind, solar, ocean, and human body motion with applications ranging from electric, hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, stand alone and grid-connected power systems to portable electronic devices such as cellular phones, digital cameras, music devices and many more.

Signals and Information Group

The signals and information group is led by Professor K.J. Ray Liu. The group researches topics such as cognitive communications, networking and security; cooperative communications and networking; time-reversal based green wireless communications; physical layer security and signal fingerprinting; multimedia social networks; multimedia forensics and anti-forensics; and music understanding.

Speech Communication Laboratory

Research at the Speech Communication Lab focuses on combining the principles of science with the innovation of engineering to solve problems in speech and related areas. The emphasis of research is on understanding the principles of speech production and perception, and applying these principles in the development of acoustic parameters that will enable machines to automatically identify speakers or recognize speech. Research is also aimed at enhancing the quality of speech for such applications. All the projects are headed by Dr. Carol Espy-Wilson, the director of the Speech Communication Lab.

Systems Engineering and Integration Laboratory

We perform research on systems integration and vertical systems engineering, undertaking the merging of sophisticated control and communication systems methodologies, such as large-scale optimization, nonlinear and stochastic estimation and control, algebraic and differential geometric methods, scheduling, with computer-science methodologies from database management, search and planning algorithms, symbolic computation, object-oriented programming, and massively parallel architectures. We research the modeling of complex systems investigating hierarchical modeling at different levels of detail, linking the physical modeling layer to the abstract layer, model-based automation and sensing, and on-line model construction with controlled complexity.

The Computational Sensorimotor Systems Laboratory (CSSL)

The Computational Sensorimotor Systems Lab focuses on the exploration, analysis, modeling and implementation of biological sensorimotor systems for both scientific and engineering purposes. Specifically, we are interested in the neural basis of fast, accurate sensorimotor processing and long-term learning in these systems. Prof. Horiuchi specializes in neuromorphic analog VLSI design, neural computation in sensorimotor systems (e.g., bats), and their application to mobile robotics. Prof. Simon specializes in the application of modern signal processing techniques in the analysis of magnetoencephalography (MEG) for auditory processing in humans

University of Maryland Electron Ring

The University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER) is a world-class research facility in beam and accelerator physics at the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, on the University of Maryland, College Park campus. Using a scaled low-energy electron beam, UMER cleverly accesses the intense, high-brightness, regime of beam operation in accelerators, at a much lower cost than larger and more energetic machines. UMER therefore makes an ideal testbed for experimenting in pushing up the brightness of existing and future accelerators.